


I Never Meant to Fall in Love With You

by Phoenixflames12



Category: Poldark Novels
Genre: F/M, Season 3, The Black Moon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 16:50:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11189301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenixflames12/pseuds/Phoenixflames12
Summary: After hearing about the shipwreck of Dwight’s ship off the coast of France, Caroline stands on the cliffs and tries to come to terms with her feelings.Follows timeline of The Black Moon





	I Never Meant to Fall in Love With You

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the small snippets of Dwight and Caroline in the Season 3 Episode 2 trailer and a missing moment from the book between Caroline leaving Verity in Falmouth and meeting Ross in Truro.

 

I Never Meant to Fall in Love with You

 

‘I never meant to fall in love with you’, the words are lost on the wind as she stands with her back to the headland, letting the salt sting of the waves crashing down on the rocks below envelop her.

 

She had made her farewells from Verity Blamey and the small, porticoed house in Falmouth looking out over the open mouth of the bay, as soon as she could. Verity had begged her to stay the night, the grief and anguish for their loved ones lost at sea etched all too clearly on her fine, dark features.

 

She had not been able to bear it.

 

Had not been able to bear the cavernous washings of grief that hung over the house like the threat of rain, the way that the brandy stain had soaked the tapestry carpet, or Verity running to her, enfolding her in an embrace that she did not know if she deserved.

 

The wind billows around her skirts, its fingers ice cold and chapped against her cheeks. There are no tears, not yet, she will not allow herself the luxury, the finality of tears.

 

Somewhere to her back, the horse stamps impatiently, tossing its’ head and willing to be away back to the safety of the Killewarren stables.

 

‘Wait a moment’, she hears herself say, her voice not sounding her own.

 

_Wait for what, she wonders?_

_For a messenger to come careering round the bend in the road  from the Admirality on a lathered horse and hand over a much thumbed, salt stained missive telling her that there had been a mistake?_

_For Unwin, Unwin Trevauance, the man that she had played and taunted like a game of cards, to come to her here on the cliffs overlooking Nampara Bay and beg her forgiveness?_

 

_For her uncle, dear uncle Ray, to make a miraculous recovery and not leave her alone in this world that she knows nothing about?_

The wind was beginning to rise over the cliffs, its fingers chilling against her cheeks. Out of the bay the sea is rough, squalls and swells swirling against crashing white horses, the heavy prospect of an oncoming storm thick in the air.

 

‘I never meant to fall in love with you’, she thinks again, and wonders fleetingly, what their life would have been like had he never crossed her path.

 

_Would she be in Bath or London now, married, part of the society that her uncle craved as her birthright; her life filled with morning calls and tea with friends in brightly lit drawing rooms and balls, supper parties toasting her faceless, nameless husband and simpering over a hand of cards?_

 

And where would he be? Still at the cottage that looked over Nampara with his cohort of darling Rosina’s and his patients, willing to pay him with anything they had?

 

_Not at sea. Not relieving the sacred, blissful hours that they had had snatched together, riding from Killawarren down to the bay and up into the woods, their path a carpet of bluebells and spring violets._

_Not lost on the swirling mists of the Channel, being buffeted and blown towards the French coast._

_Not towards a land already soaking itself in the blood of its own citizens, where Robspierre, Saint-Just and Danton reigned supreme. Where fear, death and uncertainty swirled in a dark, seeping stain the colour of blood._

 

Overhead, the sun is beginning to dip behind a cloud, the colours swirling into the beginning of a clouded sunset. She should be heading homeward now, her uncle would be worried at her being absent for so long.

 

She had told him the barest of lies about her leaving him, though it had made her choked and tearful to do so.

 

She was heading to Bath, she had said. She would be visiting old acquaintances and taking the stagecoach; would be there for a week or so.

 

 _How she wishes now that she had been honest!_ Honest because she has nothing that can help Dwight, she is nothing to him in the eyes of the law, not wife, nor sister, nor cousin and the thought their love comes to nothing rips at her heart, the wound that had been torn open at the news of the ship's loss weeping afresh with pain.

 

Their marriage had not been consummated, the ink on the marriage certificate not fully dried before he had been called away to Trenwith and then back to sea.

 

‘I never meant to fall in love with you’, she whispers out into the salt-sharp air, swirling cold and wet with rain as she turns back to the impatient horse and the road home; the first cold drops catching on her cloak.

 

‘I never meant it then, but I do now. I do, Dwight. _I do.’_

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticism etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


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